The Westwood Village Improvement Association is a nonprofit organization tasked with improving the state of Westwood Village. Property and business owners created the association in 2011 to provide Westwood Village with functions the City of Los Angeles could not provide. Its board of directors meets monthly.
- Andrew Thomas, executive director of the association, said the Los Angeles Department of Transportation will try to activate electronic signs that display the amount of street parking available in Westwood Village by the end of the month.
- Thomas also said the association will host its annual meeting on Oct. 25. Zev Yaroslavsky, former L.A. city councilman and former member of the county’s board of supervisors, will be the main speaker.
- Board member and UCLA Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael Beck said the association’s parking, access and transportation committee discussed meeting with LADOT to assist it in leasing the vacant retail spaces in the Broxton Public Parking Garage building.
- Beck added the committee discussed rebuilding the Bank of America spire that used to be on the Janss Investment Company Building dome on Westwood Boulevard and Kinross Avenue. Jim Brooks, vice chair of the board, said Ira Smedra, the building’s landlord, agreed to pursue the project.
- Thomas said the association’s business attraction and retention committee wants to make the association’s website more user and mobile friendly. Thomas also said the committee met with Westwood Village Farmer’s Market manager Steve Whipple to discuss his plans for the market. Whipple aims to change the market’s hours, add more booths and possibly move it to a different location.
- The association’s clean, safe and beautiful committee is looking to hire a new cleaning service provider for the Village after their contract with the company Block by Block ended. The committee will either re-hire Block by Block, which currently uses about 75 percent of its budget, or hire a new company, Streetplus.
- Architect John Kaliski answered questions from the board and the public about the recommendations his urban planning class made in the spring to update the Westwood Village Specific Plan. The class suggested splitting up the Village into four subareas, improving retail on corners and creating a central vision. The association’s committees will look at the class’ findings and decide whether to take action in the near future.